Ze Tian Ji

Chapter 190: The Gleam of Light within History

Translator:hypersheep13

Editor:hypersheep13

The eighth portrait in the Lingyan Pavilion was of Wang Zhice.

Everyone with a slight understanding of history was well aware that Wang Zhice was a true legend. He was born in poverty and had no talent for cultivation, yet he was able to successfully enter the Heavenly Dao Academy for study. During Taizu’s reign, he spent all his time as a scribe in the court until suddenly, when he was forty-some years old, he comprehended the Dao in a single night and cast starlight over the entire city of Chang’an, going straight from Purification to Ethereal Opening and then going on to become one of the strongest of the generation.

What people found even more praiseworthy was that Wang Zhice’s knowledge encompassed both the north and the south, and he had also studied military matters, strategy, and array formation. He had accompanied Emperor Taizong on several expeditions to the north and ultimately become the vice commander-in-chief of the allied armies, leading the army to successively shatter the power of the demons. He had even brought an army of elite cavalry to break through the snowy plains, fighting all the way to the Helan Mountains, less than eight hundred li from Xuelao City!

If one only took into account military achievement or importance in that war, Wang Zhice was the most dazzling of that bright group of stars, the only person that could stand on par with Emperor Taizong. Given his impressive achievements, he naturally had the right to rank eight in the portraits of meritorious ministers in the Lingyan Pavilion. Many people even felt that he should have been ranked even higher, at the very least in the top three.

The reason he was ranked eighth in the Lingyan Pavilion was very simple: his achievements in the war and his status in the minds of the people were too high, so high that they were even beginning to unsettle the emperor’s position. Crucially, in Emperor Taizu’s later years, during the coup of the Hundred Herb Garden, unlike the Duke of Zhao, Chen Gong, Qin Zhong, Yu Gong and those others, he did not make his stance known, did not firmly stand at Taizong’s side. It was precisely for this reason that no matter how much achieved, he was never able to obtain Emperor Taizong’s absolute trust. His loyalty remained forever in question, and so after the conclusion of the great war, he claimed his age as reason for retirement and ceased to involve himself in government affairs.

Chen Changsheng stood quietly in front of this portrait for a very long time, looking up at this serene middle-aged man grasping a jade ruler. He then continued viewing the portraits.

Soon after, he saw the portraits of Qin Zhong and Yu Gong, the two Divine Generals that had stood at Emperor Taizong’s side. They had possessed an unworldly might, and now they also possessed an unworldly reputation, as portraits of them would now be pasted to the main doors of every building, whether a palace or common house1. Those portraits were exactly the same as the ones displayed in the Lingyan Pavilion.

These two Divine Generals were like all the other virtuous predecessors in the Lingyan Pavilion: still human, but already gods.

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Chen Changsheng’s feet slowly moved, as did his gaze. He tightly gripped the torch of white jade in his hand, and the light on the gray walls shifted, seeming to increase the emotions expressed on the faces in these portraits.

The people in these portraits were just like Wang Zhice, legends of the past, each with their own tale. Lingyan Pavilion had a very solemn and dignified air, but the people in these paintings each possessed their own mood. Some people seemed very frivolous, like Divine General Cheng Mingjie, while others were abnormally stern, like the Duke of Zheng.

In a short while, Chen Changsheng had finished viewing the twenty-four portraits on the eastern wall. These twenty-four had been the first meritorious ministers to be bestowed this honor when Emperor Taizong first established the Lingyan Pavilion. There were still several dozen portraits of the meritorious ministers that were entered into the Lingyan Pavilion during the reigns of Emperor Xian and the Divine Empress.

Chen Changsheng became more and more pensive. From Taizu’s rebellion against the previous dynasty to Taizong’s stabilizing of the world and then to the Divine Empress’s ascension, many major events had occurred over the long span of one thousand years. The people in the Lingyan Pavilion had all been participants, truly important figures that had existed within history. To put it another way, they were history.

Walking in the Lingyan Pavilion was walking through the long river of history. Those portraits contained the ebb and flow of history, and also its weight. Countless secrets had vanished with the deceased, forever silenced. Yet those secrets were here, bearing the countless world-shaking events of the past. If the portraits of these virtuous predecessors were to come to life, or if they had left some information to be understood by those who came after, those scholars who studied history would presumably be able to die without regrets.

It took approximately an hour to view all the portraits of the Lingyan Pavilion. Chen Changsheng walked to the prayer mat in the center of the pavilion and, while still standing, began to think.

After a few moments, he heard the toll of a bell. This bell came from the ground and was rather far away, so it was rather soft and beautiful, yet it roused him from his pensive mood and made it impossible for him to calm back down.

With the toll of this bell, the torch in his hands instantly went out. In the blink of an eye, the Lingyan Pavilion turned pitch-black, the seams of the door and windows not letting in even the smallest ray of light.

Chen Changsheng looked around at the darkness, coming to understand something. When the Grand Examination’s first rank of the first banner came to calmly contemplate for one night in the Lingyan Pavilion, they first had to be calm. Within the Lingyan Pavilion, there were no external objects to disturb them, and with the soft and beautiful toll of the bell, it became impossible to see. There was nothing to do other than sit on the prayer mat and calmly contemplate and comprehend.

The Great Zhou Dynasty hoped that the portraits in the Lingyan Pavilion and that Qi from the beginning would be able to interact with the Qi of the person meditating in the Lingyan Pavilion and harmonize with it, strengthening this person’s allegiance to the Imperial Court, the Imperial clan, and the Divine Empress.

In the last few years, the Grand Examination’s first rank of the first banner had either been a disciple from the Mount Li Sword Sect or some other southerner. They originally did not feel like they belonged to the Great Zhou Dynasty, and so when they entered the pavilion, they would have a natural conflict with that powerful Qi. It was naturally very difficult for this Qi to do as was originally intended by the person who made the rule and become one with the person’s mind.

Chen Changsheng was a person of Zhou, so there really was a chance that the original aspiration of the Grand Examination’s architect could be completed. However, upon entering the Lingyan Pavilion, he found it simply impossible to calm his mind. His thoughts found it impossible to rest on the future of the country and unity of the human world, only on a subtler, or perhaps more selfish, place.

Time slowly passed, silently and still without a sliver of light.

Unlike the other first ranks of the first banner, Chen Changsheng did not seat himself on the mat to quietly spend the night. He took his dagger from his waist, his left hand gripping the sheath and extending it towards the darkness in front of him. In the pitch-black darkness of the Lingyan Pavilion, one would lose sight of their hand if they extended it, so he also could not see the dagger. However, after leaving Xining Village, this dagger rarely left his side, so he was very familiar with it. Raising his right hand, he accurately gripped the hilt.

The two hands slowly parted, yet the dagger did not leave its sheath. What he took was not his dagger, but a ball of light. Shining like the morning sun rising over the horizon, it instantly illuminated the Lingyan Pavilion.

A perfectly round Night Pearl appeared in the palm of his right hand.

The soft light illuminated the gray walls and also seeped through the cracks between his fingers to shine upon the floorboards. It stretched out a long shadow behind him which gradually faded as the Night Pearl brightened.

He had confirmed that the seams in the door and windows did not let light through, so he was not concerned.

He raised the Night Pearl and walked towards the portraits.

As he walked through the still and quiet Lingyan Pavilion, the darkness fled from the gleam of light in his palm, gradually revealing his true surroundings. He gazed at the people on those portraits and felt that the people in the portraits were looking back at him.

He suppressed this strange feeling and once more came to Wang Zhice’s portrait.

He placed both hands on his dagger and stabbed its sharp point into the seams of the gray bricks by the portrait. He slowly and carefully pushed it in, his hands trembling and his fingers white.